GOD WILLING, 2013 will go down in history as the year chefs emerged from the haze of fat-forward cooking, rubbed the lard from their eyes and discovered all the flavor they were missing.

Anyone who has logged time tableside at America's trendier restaurants can attest to the full-throttle bender on which chefs have escorted diners in recent years. The cooking aesthetic I'm talking about is summed up quite evocatively in a term coined a couple of years ago by the food writer Josh Ozersky: lardcore. Deep-fried pig tails. Bacon deviled eggs. Marrow bones the size of hockey sticks. Foie gras doughnuts. The list goes on. Then there are the rivers of butter and cream that course through these meals unseen, basting meats and fish, thickening sauces or simply as an insurance policywhenever a dish's oomph is in doubt.

Cathal Armstrong, chef-owner of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Va., has been among the first to cry 'uncle.' After joining first lady Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move!' campaign against childhood obesity and subsequently shedding 50 pounds of his own, Mr. Armstrong set his sights on his restaurant guests: Shouldn't they benefit from the same nutritional standards he sets for himself and his kids? So Mr. Armstrong began tinkering with preparations and proportions, experimenting with trading the calorie-dense and nutrition-light for more nourishing fare. In the process, he discovered that the flavors he could achieve without all the fat and salt weren't just passable; they were actually better.

Take carrot pur